a day ago
Owner of Berks personal care agency sentenced to prison for Medicaid fraud
The owner of a Bally-based personal care agency has been sentenced to state prison for running a scheme that defrauded Medicaid.
Gavin Mata, 36, of Bronx, N.Y., was sentenced Wednesday by Berks County Judge Thomas Parisi to one month in prison, followed by 22 months of parole and five years of probation.
Mata was also ordered to pay $235,778 in restitution.
Mata pleaded guilty in April to felony Medicaid fraud and perjury, as well as a separate count of Medicaid fraud on behalf of the company. He had been charged following an investigation by the state attorney general and a formal accusation of a crime made by the 47th Statewide Investigating Grand Jury.
According to officials from the attorney general's office:
The investigation showed that between 2020 and 2022 Mata and his company, Part of Our Family Home Care Agency, submitted claims for Medicaid reimbursements using false information or claiming to have provided services that were never done.
Some of the claims involved patients that never signed up for or received care from A Part of Our Family, while others regarded employees who were unaware Mata had submitted false claims for hours they allegedly worked.
During the grand jury investigation, Mata also testified untruthfully about payroll records.
In all, officials documented that Part of Our Family received over $488,349 from Medicaid for nonexistent services.
'The defendant went to great lengths to perpetrate this fraud scheme, falsifying records and reporting bogus hours for employees without their knowledge,' Attorney General David Sunday said in a statement Friday announcing Mata's sentencing. 'Medicaid fraud takes money and resources away from Pennsylvanians in need of care.'
